PAYNESVILLE, Montserrado —A local adoption agency with partners in the United States has been shut down and an arrest warrant issued for its Liberian and American heads and four local staff, according to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
By Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
The ministry, which supervises adoption agencies and orphanages in the country, took the decision against the agency, Americans for Africans Adoptions, this week – close to a year after a police investigation found that “child physical abuse was perpetrated by their immediate caretakers” and that the agency had “deliberately failed” to respond to the alleged abuses. The investigation was sparked by a complaint from staff at the US embassy in Monrovia more than a year ago.
The police investigation report was completed in May last year. An arrest warrant was not issued until November but there was no action taken at the time. Asked why the ministry is acting now, Mr. Webster Cassell, a communications specialist at the ministry, said the embassy had “followed up” with the new team at the ministry as to whether it was aware of “the ongoing investigation,” a query that prompted them to also inquire from the police about the status case. Mr. Cassell said the police then shared the report with them, prompting this week’s action. Mr. Cassell said they “carefully looked into” the “grave” police findings before revoking the agency’s license on the advice of their lawyers.
The police report alleged “that sexual activities were common among children” at the orphanage and that eight of the girls had been sexually abused by other children, not by any adults. The report also alleged that “caretakers were cognizant of ongoing sexual activities among the children but concealed the information and failed to report it” to the orphanage’s country director, Oretha James.
Mr. Cassell said that the decision to shut the orphanage down and charge the staff was not a clear cut one for the ministry.
“We debated at the highest level, the ministerial level,” said Mr. Cassell in a FrontPage Africa/New Narratives interview. “And based on that, following all those heated engagements, then the decision was reached.”
Mr. Cassell said the 30 children ages between 2-18 years, were removed from the agency a year ago after the complaint was lodged and are in the government’s safe homes.
Gate to former compound of the agency.
The Liberian government, through the city solicitor of Paynesville, issued an arrest order for agency staff – Oretha James, Elizabeth Gotta, Martha P. Philip, Facia Brooks and Cheryl Carter-Shott – accusing them of “recklessly endangering another person, endangering the welfare of children, disorderly conduct, criminal conspiracy and criminal facilitation.”
Madam Oretha James, the head of the agency, said in an interview by phone, “I will speak to my lawyer and anything he says, I will get back to you.” Ms. Carter-Shott, the founder of the agency, is an American citizen and is believed to be in the United States. She can only be arrested and brought to Liberia to face her alleged charges if the US accepts a Liberian extradition request. Liberia and the United States have an extradition treaty, but the US has never agreed to an extradition request, preferring to try US citizens accused of crimes in its own jurisdiction.
One of the children’s rooms in the previous orphanage of the Americans for Africians Adoptions. Photo taken in 2024. The alleged filth of the home had sparked outrage among children’s rights advocates. Credit: Anthony Stephens/New Narratives.
Meanwhile, the gender ministry said it would lift a suspension imposed on another adoption agency, the Small World Adoption Agency, within 30 days if the agency met certain requirements, including hiring “an independent psycho-social counselor to manage the intake of new orphans.” Police said they had found no evidence to support accusations also made by US Embassy staff members that Mr. Albert Ballah, executive director of the agency, had illegally adopted and trafficked minors from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital and ELWA Hospital in Monrovia.
Children in the living room of Small World Adoption Agency in April 2024. Credit: Anthony Stephens/New Narratives.
Allegations of child abuse and illegal adoptions at agencies aren’t new in Liberia. Adoptions were banned in 2009, when then-president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said in an annual message “that young children were being sexually abused at some of these orphanages, while others including officials of government, have used the program to extort money from potential adopters.” President Sirleaf lifted the ban in 2015 and her government put in place some policies, including regulations on the adoption of children and standard operating procedures as a means of safeguarding and properly regulating the adoption industry. But the case suggests the issues that prompted the ban continue to persist.
Americans for African Adoptions has a long history in Africa and has faced allegations of illegal adoptions or child abuse. They have also faced lawsuits from adopting families who said they paid large sums of money but never received a child they legally adopted.
The accused can be arrested at any time. The alleged crimes are bailable. Before an indictment is issued, a grand jury must agree with the prosecutors about the likelihood that the accused committed the crimes. This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia which had no say in the story’s content.
